


Servants and Sacrifices

by Wasuremono



Category: Flight Rising
Genre: Background Relationships, Gen, Ice vs. Plague, The Fortress of Ends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-24
Updated: 2015-12-24
Packaged: 2018-05-09 02:41:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5522381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wasuremono/pseuds/Wasuremono
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Plaguebringer comes to the Fortress of Ends to offer the Icewarden a hostage exchange.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Servants and Sacrifices

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kaesa](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kaesa/gifts).



> Happy Yuletide and merry Icemas, Kaesa! The Flight Rising pantheon is so beautifully dysfunctional, and I love it. Icewarden and Plaguebringer should probably never be in the same room, but that's what fanfic is for, right? (I only regret that I couldn't figure out how to get Flamecaller involved in this mess.)

It was a clear morning in the Southern Icefield, and the sun cast strong, sharp shadows through the walls of the Fortress of Ends. The Icewarden had come to appreciate chiaroscuro in the viewing of his collection. The Chamber of Mistakes was open-air and well-lighted, the better to appreciate the grotesques stored within, but the shadows added complexity to the ill-made creatures preserved forever in ice. The specimen he contemplated that morning was a particular favorite, a five-headed Emperor which he had personally subdued and captured; the peripheral heads were frozen in the eternal fury of every Emperor, but the central head wore an expression of sad befuddlement. It had been an Ice dragon in life. The Icewarden prefers to believe that it recognized its rightful master in that last moment of conscious life, before it became an honored exhibit in the Chamber of Mistakes.

A vast shadow passed overhead, of familiar contour, and the Icewarden unhurriedly turned his gaze towards the red shape perched upon a spire. What a specimen for the Chamber of Mistakes she would be! The Plaguebringer folded her tattered wings and leered down at him. "Icewarden. You have one of mine, and I demand her return."

"I have so many of yours." The Icewarden gestured with a single claw. "You spit them out by the horde. Even if you were in a position to make demands, why would you want one when you could make a dozen more?"

The Plaguebringer spread her wings again, swooping down to alight next to him on the floor of the Chamber. A small cluster of servants had heard the noises and gathered at the doorway, fearful and awed at once; they would be adequate "volunteers" to scrub the chamber thoroughly once the Filthy One had departed. "I am in a position to make demands," she replied. "You'll see. And it's this one I want -- my little experiment." She oozed between the stacks, and the Icewarden hastened to follow, lest she ruin something precious by her mere presence. (He would need more cleaning volunteers.)

The Plaguebringer pulled a prison-crystal from the array. Inside, curled in upon itself, was a Tundra dragon -- the insult of it! Every mistake he had made in the breed's construction seemed magnified in the prisoner's form, warped further by the Plaguebringer's experimentation. It was a female, or a particularly patchy-maned male, and its fur was a dirty rot-yellow discolored further by some sort of disease. The wings, naked and raw, bulged with sinuous parasites trapped just below the skin. Some unknown disease process had ripped open its skin, and gouts of dark blood stained its neck and limbs, frozen into thick mats. It was a spindly, wretched thing, caught permanently in a thin summer coat, and yet its face was relaxed as if in sleep. Imprisonment of this specimen was surely an act of mercy. That sad, small face -- why was it familiar to him?

"No," said the Icewarden. "I remember this one now. She came to me, with her mate, searching for succor. The mate entered my service, and I preserved her as a favor to him. She is mine by right."

"Then the prisoners in the laboratory-ship at your borders are also mine by right," replied the Plaguebringer. "They're not all your children, of course. Yours are far too stoic to be much interest in the laboratories and reaction-pools. There are a few Shadowlings, though, and a few Arcane-spawn -- much better sport. Constantly trying to trick my scientists, the Shadowlings are, and the Arcane-spawn want so badly simply to _understand._ I am led to understand that you yet owe favors to the Shadowbinder and Arcanist alike. I believe the Arcanist held off the beasts at your borders while you and the Shadowbinder discussed your... differences?"

"My business with the Shadowbinder is none of _your_ business!"

"Perhaps not, Icewarden." The Plaguebringer contorted her face into a stronger sneer. "But would she not be pleased if you deliver her some of her own children, rescued from their cruel imprisonment in a Plague laboratory-ship? Might not the Arcanist accept your reparations for his war losses? I can offer you threescore of each, plus fourscore of your own children, tedious little stoics. All for this single child of mine."

Even for the Icewarden, a hundred dragons was a number to be considered, and the Arcanist was perhaps owed reparations. The Icewarden had never seen the Shadowbinder express gratitude, and the very prospect was... intriguing. The imprisoned Tundra had come to him for succor, but there were larger forces at play than the life of a single, half-dead Tundra. "Very well," replied the Icewarden, and with a thought, he dismissed the prison-crystal. 

The Tundra collapsed to the floor of the chamber, blinking her eyes as she awoke, blood-mats still frozen solid. "Lord Icewarden? Why am I --" She squeaked as the Plaguebringer snatched her by the nape of the neck with her teeth and took off. The blood-dark shape dwindled and disappeared, and silence returned to the Fortress of Ends. The Icewarden glanced at the servants in the doorway, and they scattered to find cleaning implements, ready to help their lord put his chamber in order again.

Hours of scrubbing, scouring, and supervision later, the Icewarden was roused from his thoughts by the soft sound of a draconic throat clearing. At his feet was a servant -- another Tundra, he realized, but a stark contrast to his ransomed prisoner, with a thick and gleaming ice-pale coat. "Lord Icewarden?" the Tundra spoke, voice at a reverent whisper. "Do you remember? I was the one who came with Affy."

"Affy?" Oh, of course -- that plague-ridden Tundra had claimed a name, an oddity in a specimen so ragged, and this rather better-formed Tundra had been her mate. What had possibly possessed him to bind himself to her was a mystery. Perhaps it was that excess of sympathy the Icewarden had so often regretted in his creations. "I see," said the Icewarden. "You must trust my judgment in this matter, of course. Her sacrifice serves the Southern Icefield, to which she offered her life."

"She won't be a sacrifice! My lord, I trust you, but Affy told me what the Plaguebringer wanted with her. She's a weapon in the making." The Tundra averted his gaze, pale eyes reflected in the fresh-scrubbed floor. "Some kind of contagion-bearer, she said. A standard-bearer for the armies. Lady Plaguebringer told her it was an honor, but she didn't want it, my lord. Please, don't let Lady Plaguebringer have her now!"

"My child," said the Icewarden, attempting the paternal stance that was always such a tiresome chore. "She has been taken, and it would be an act of war to take her back now. If you think she will be used as a weapon against us, though, there is a service you can offer her and us. You were her mate, after all. What do you still remember of her?"

"I've tried to remember her all. I've lost so much, but -- her smell lingers."

"Of course, my child." His creations, so flawed, were useful in that one respect. "Would you remember that smell even if her shape was changed? If the Plaguebringer were, say, to transform her into a monster or a weapon?"

"I cannot _promise,_ my lord, but..."

But he wanted to promise, the Icewarden could see. Was he terrified of disappointing his lord, the Icewarden considered, or of forgetting his mate's scent? It hardly mattered, though. "Then we must preserve you and your keen memory of her. When she takes the field as the Plaguebringer's weapon, we must have a dragon who can identify her and appeal to what better nature remains in her." More likely it would leave her vulnerable to imprisonment, but that was useful an outcome, if not as comforting to his lovelorn servant. "I must preserve you until you are needed. Will you offer yourself for this service?"

"You service is mine, my lord," said the Tundra, and then fell silent and waited. He had no doubt watched the entombment of the useful and frail, those to be preserved for the future needs of the Fortress, and the Icewarden knew his servant expected the encapsulation of ice that surrounded him. In an instant's thought, the new prison-crystal was complete and perfect, the size and shape of the one from which the servant's mate had been released. An accident, that, but perhaps it was an auspicious accident.

The Icewarden returned to his disrupted wall, placing the newly-formed prison-crystal in the place where the Plaguebringer had disrupted his display. The Tundra was too well-made to fit in with his fellow specimens, but his choice of mate no doubt qualified as a mistake worthy of the Chamber. With luck, the Plaguebringer's plots would fail, and he would rest there forever. If not... well, that the Icewarden would consider. A shared specimen chamber, a dragon and his monster, their folly preserved? Yes, that would suit. It could sit next to the Emperor and provide him a proper place for contemplation of his children's greatest failures. It would be an icy satisfaction, and to the Icewarden, such chill comforts were the finest.


End file.
